Yunna Flenord, RN
We are thrilled to be celebrating our 2025 Nurse of the Year, Yunna Flenord. Yunna’s path to nursing began at a very young age. At 5 years old, she was ill with meningitis. The doctors told her mother that there was no hope, but the nurses encouraged her mom not to give up. She doesn’t know how she remembers it so clearly, but she can still hear their voices advocating for her. Yunna shared “I’ve always wanted to be a nurse because of those nurses.”
Yunna’s journey didn’t lead directly into a nursing career. After getting married and having children, she worked several jobs, including her favorite as a librarian assistant. Later, with two kids in tow, she went to nursing school while getting a divorce. She earned her associate degree in nursing from Central Alabama Community College with a 3.9 GPA at age 32.
Yunna was born in North Carolina, spent a lot of her childhood in Spring Lake, NC, and, after getting married, settled for many years in Alabama. Her first nursing job was at Regional Medical Center in Anniston, Alabama. She precepted there, and they hired her right out of nursing school. Yunna has spent her entire career in the Intensive Care Unit. After six months, she transitioned to the Cardiac ICU on night shift and has been there ever since. She quickly became a charge nurse.
She moved to WA ten years ago after spending a couple of years as a travel nurse – first working in Vancouver, WA, and then here in Tacoma. She took a travel assignment at St. Joe’s Cardiac ICU and loved it. She says “We had the best manager ever.” She was hired for a permanent position and has been at St. Joe’s for 9 years.
When Yunna was encouraged to try Cardiac ICU, it wasn’t an immediate fit, but she quickly grew to love it. She loves that a patient can come from being very sick, having had open-heart surgery, being intubated and sedated, to getting up and sitting in a chair 6 hours later, then walking around the unit and discharging home. As she puts it, she loves “to see that progression.”
Yunna shares that she’s struggled with burnout for the last few years. It wasn’t during the first year of the pandemic. That year was very hard, but she’s proud of the teamwork during that time. Then things changed. People began to release their anger at healthcare professionals. It was difficult caring for patients who took out their frustration on her and her coworkers. Yunna shared “I didn’t understand how people can be so mean.” “We were blamed for everything afterward.”
In the midst of burnout, Yunna turned her focus to helping the new nurses, recent graduates who went through nursing school during the pandemic and were struggling. Their patients were really sick, and support from experienced nurses was limited. She shares “I love that I can be that person for them.” She gives young nurses her number and lets them know that they can text her or call her. “I’m there for them.”
With so many young nurses on the floor, Yunna knows that they are being challenged more than ever to gain experience and skills quickly. This is a big learning curve, and while that may not be ideal, it allows young nurses to gain skills quickly. From her own experience as a young nurse, she knows that it is vital to have experienced nurses you can lean on and that a lot of young nurses leave nursing because they don’t have the support they need. She is making it her mission to be there to support them. She is also advocating for new programs – “we’ve got to support them … they are our future .”
Yunna was nominated by one of the young nurses. Her nominator wrote, “I aspire to be like her, in how she advocates for critical resources and support for nurses and patients alike in both the workplace and community. She embraces every challenge with dedication, humor, and compassion.”
Yunna encourages young nurses to find balance. She tells them that no matter how hard a shift is, it’s only 12 hours. When you leave work, leave it – go home and be with your family. Yunn tells them “Leave the job at the job … Enjoy your personal life.” “You can’t make nursing your entire life, or you’ll burn out.”
In addition to mentoring young nurses, Yunna has served in local unit leadership. She began by joining the bargaining team over six years ago and, since then, has served as a grievance officer. She is also the co-chair of the Racial Justice Task Force, which was formed after being included in their last contract. It’s a place for anyone with any issues to go and have their concerns addressed. In her words, “I love that it’s a safe space.” While it’s a young task force, it has already made an impact, creating systemic change from an incident that was brought to the task force.
Yunna also serves on the WSNA Labor Executive Committee. She enjoys being able to support the work of nurses at local units across the state.
Outside of work, Yunna loves to read and watch crime shows, but her main focus is her children and grandchildren. As a single mom, she’s very busy. Yunna’s youngest is 14 and busy with activities, and two of her older children live in the Portland area. She has 6 grandchildren – 3 boys and 3 girls. All are under the age of 8. She’s cherishing her time as a grandmother to young children and likes to visit them as often as she can.